Vacuum center table for planers



y 1952 J. c. PETTER. 2,595,483

VACUUM CENTER TABLE FOR PLANERS Filed Dec. 29, 1950 2 SHEETSSHEET 1 \NVENTOK JAYC. PETTER ATTORNEY y 6, 1952 J. c. PETTER 2,595,483

VACUUM CENTER TABLE FDR PLANERS Filed D86. 29, 1950 2 SHEETSSHEET 2 Boooopodooooo ---ooooooooooooooo o0 o.oooooooooooo00ooo0 o oo fl oo ooooo o ocooooooooooo 3 ooooooooooooo ooo0000 000 7,..00000 O ooo ooo lwvem'oa JAY C. PETTER Patented May 6, 1952 VACUUM CENTER TABLE FOR PLANERS Jay C. Petter, Holland, Mich., assignor to Buss Machine Works, Holland, Mich., a corporation of Michigan Application December 29, 1950, Serial No. 203,287-

The present invention is directed to an improvement upon planers, generally known as wood planers, and is primarily concerned with a novel and very eifective means for insuring that thin flexible material shall be held against the upper side of the center section of a planer table or bed over which it is moved underneath a rotary cutter, and will not curl or otherwise move upward at its edges where the knives of the cutter first engage it, and will also be held with a proper degree of snugness against the upper surface of the planer center bed section, so that the upper side of the work, which is being planed will, when finished, be finished substantially in a plane parallel to the upper side of said center section of the table bed, will not be broken up and destroyed by the cutter knives engaging a turned up edge of the work, and the material planed when finished will have a substantially uniform thickness.

In practice, the invention as we have produced it is used on planers for planing what will be the undersides of rubber or rubber-like floor coverings, which are placed upon the under floor and cemented thereto. Heretofore, almost if not quite universally, such under surfaces of covering sections have been finished by a sanding operation. Sanding is a slow, expansive and dirty process but has been the best'way for finishing such flexible floor covering material thus far used.

It is of course to be understood that while particularly useful in connection with such flexible composition floor covering materials, the invention is also useful where any thin flexible material needs planing, as in some veneers and the like.

An understanding of the invention may be had from the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which,

Fig. 1 is a fragmentary longitudinal vertical section through the planer, showing the center section of said bed equipped with my invention.

Fig. 2 is a plan view of said center bed section, and

Fig. 3 is a longitudinal, central vertical section therethrough, substantially on the plane of line 3--3 of Fig. 2.

Like reference characters refer to like parts in the different figures of the drawings.

The usual wood planer has a center table or bed section I, over which the rotary cutter head 2 is mounted for high speed rotation, there being lower feed rollers 3 and upper rollers 4 as shown at the ends of said center section of the bed, entrance and delivery sections of the bed in sub- 3 Claims. (Cl. 144-117) stantially the same plane as the center section l located outwardly from the lower rollers 3. The

' chips and the like which are planed from the upper side of the workpassing underneath the cutter head 2, are vacuum withdrawn through a hood 5 over the rotary cutter head 2 which is connected to the housing sides 6, which provide chip breakers and other parts of the planer. The chips and other material removed are carried upwardly by the cutter knives so that the induced air current in the interior of the hood 5 produced continuously by a suction blower or the like causes removal of such loose material.

This is the environment in which our invention is applied. In producing the invention, a transverse middle portion of the center section I of the planer bed has a large number of small holes I drilled vertically therethrough. As shown, there are seven rows of such holes extending across and underneath the cutter head 2. Such holes are located, as indicated in Fig. 1, so that when the knives of the cutter head engage the work passing over the table, they will engage in a vertical plane between two of the intermediate rows of the series of rows of holes, and not directly over one of such rows, as to do so would result in a downward series of projections at the lower side of the work processed, pressed into the holes by the cutting knives. The knives of the cutter head engage the work substantially in a vertical plane in which the axis of rotation of the cutter head is located, as shown in Fig. 1, such plane in its downward continuation being between two adjacent rows of holes.

At the underside of the central section I, a conduit 8 provided at its upper end with an enlarged hood so as to encompass the total area in which the small vertical openings or holes I is made, is permanently secured at its upper or hood end to the under side of the table section I, and leads therefrom to a rotary suction blower 9, the operation of which induces a vacuum within the conduit 8 and hood 8a, air at the discharge side of the blower housing being discharged through the outlet at IU.

In practice, the holes I are approximately of an inch in diameter and the center lines of longitudinal rows of holes are spaced from each other of an inch apart. The shorter rows transversely, as to the lines connecting their centers, are likewise of an inch apart. The vacuum caused by the suction blower 9 may be measured as approximately 40 inches of water. This is a greater degree of vacuum than is in the hood at 5 which in practice normally may be measured as 3 inches of water. It is of course, however, to be understood that such specific dimensions and degrees of vacuum are capable of much varia tion in accordance with the work which is being planed, though for planing the rubber or rubber composition thin floor covering material, which is not over of an inch in thickness and may be less than that, it has been found that the dimensions and the degrees of vacuum stated produce fully satisfactory results.

In the operation, generally a flexible composition floor covering sheet is carried over the table, in Fig. 1 from the right to the left or with the cutter knives, when engaging the work planed, moving in a direction the same as the movement of the material planed. However, the invention is not restricted or limited to this manner of feeding and will operate if the feeding of the material is in the opposite direction. The vacuum induced in the hood 8a causes such thin flexible material, when it comes over the air passing openings at I to be pressed by the heavier atmospheric pressure at the upper side of such material against the center planer bed section I, and held from any upward buckling or curling at the edges, so that planing at the upper side of the floor covering material passing through the planer is accurately and satisfactorily performed. At the same time, the atmospheric pressure against the upper side of such material being planed is not too great, so as to interfere with the continuous movement of such material which it should have when planing is taking place.

With the invention which we have produced the expensive and otherwise unsatisfactory sanding, particularly of such flooring material, is eliminated and a more economical and better finishing of the floor material is obtained. It is of course to be understood that the floor material may be planed at its upper side while passing through the planer in a continuous length, and such material does not need to be cut up into sections of the size that are used when laid in a floor, but that such cutting into sections may take place after the planing has been done; though, also, sections of smaller areas are also planed in the same manner.

The claims appended hereto define the invention which is to be considered comprehensive of all forms of structure coming within their scope.

I claim:

1. In a planer, a horizontal center bed section adapted to be located underneath an elongated planer cutter head rotatable about a horizontal axis, said bed section having a plurality of spaced rows of spaced vertical openings in each row therethrough, said rows of openings being adapted to extend generally in parallelism to the rotative axis of a planer cutter head adapted to be located above it, and said rows of openings in the head being disposed so that the longitudinal axis of a planer cutter located over said center bed section lies in a vertical plane between two intermediate rows of openings, additional rows of openings being at each side of said intermediate rows of openings, a conduit having a hood at its upper end, said hood having connection to the under side of said center bed section at its upper end, and being in communication with the lower ends of all of said openings, and means for continuously inducing a vacuum within said conduit and hood.

2. In a structure as defined in claim 1, the additional rows of openings at each side of said intermediate rows of openings being equal in number.

3. In a planer, a horizontal center bed section adapted to be located underneath an elongated planer cutter head rotatable about a horizontal axis, said bed section having a plurality of vertical openings therethrough lengthwise and centrally of said center bed section and generally in the length thereof in parallelism to the rotative axis of a planer cutter head adapted to be located above said openings, said openings being so located with respect to the longitudinal axis of a planer cutter head adapted to be located thereover as to provide substantially equal numbers of such openings in the center bed section at opposite sides of the vertical plane of the rotative axis of said planer cutter head, a conduit having a hood at its upper end, said hood having connection to the under side of the bed section and, at its upper end, being in communication with the lower ends of all of said openings, and means for continuously inducing a vacuum within said conduit and hood.

JAY C. PETTER.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,079,032 Solem Nov. 18, 1913 1,278,537 Wegner Sept. 10, 1918 1,815,547 Byrnes July 21, 1931 2,044,481 Manley et al. June 16, 1936 2,085,908 Huck July 6, 1937 2,216,538 Masse Oct. 1, 1940 2,362,168 Stokes Nov. 7, 1944 2,414,574 Williams Jan. 21, 1947 

